NIST has been publishing reference data on the Internet for over two decades. NIST and its predecessor, NBS, have been publishing reference data for over 100 years. While technologies and underlying science have advanced, fundamental concepts in science have not changed. This talk will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities associated with publishing data on Internet and issues which are present regardless of the publication method. The NIST Chemistry WebBook is a collection of data for molecular species from various sources. It contains several types of physical and chemical reference data. As one of NIST’s first attempts to publish reference data over the Internet, it has made this data easier to access. In doing so it has increased the size of the audience for this data. Over its two decades of existence it has adapted, although slowly, to changing technology and usage patterns. It incorporates several features to help users find data and deal with the limitations of data sets which were not designed to be published via digital media. While technology has changed, some things have not: the importance of properly identifying the system to which the data belong and providing provenance for the data. One issue which has been a challenge for utilizing data published on the Internet has been that lack of available data standards. While there have been some notable advances such as the IUPAC International Chemical Identifier (InChI), there is much work to be done in this area. Reliable data acquisition and use via automated methods will require more work in this area.

Publishing reference data on the Internet

254th National Meeting (2017)

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